Kanji Kaisen

漢字Kanji · in Nature & Elements

漸: steadily, gradually advancing

Also: finally, barely

JLPT N114 strokesSecondary schoolYour ink: 白 Not met

氵 carries the meaning · 斬 gives the sound

14 strokes
  • Small seal · Qin
  • Today

Small seal: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.

One reading, and the words that use it

ゼンzen · on'yomi · in compounds

  • 漸進ぜんしんgradual progress; steady advance
  • 漸次ぜんじgradually; slowly; little by little
  • 漸減ぜんげんgradual decrease; decline

Also read ようやく, やや, ようよう, すすむ, with no example words in our sources. Words: JMdict, EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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成り立ち

Where it comes from

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“Imagine three raindrops falling—that's sanzui! Whenever you see these three dots on the left side of a kanji, think of water, liquids, or anything that flows.”
More in the 氵 water story
繋がり
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
氵

Also built on water (氵)

All 125
斬

Also built on beheading (斬)

The 斬 family reads ザン (zan); 漸 is read ゼン.

Also read ゼン

10 kanji share this on'yomi

Easy to confuse

The difference, side by side
漸 steadily · 氵
vs暫 temporarily · 日
漸 has 氵 where 暫 has 日.
In ChineseSimplified 渐 · traditional, as in Japanese · jiàn

Japan keeps the traditional form 漸; mainland China simplifies it to 渐.

Simplified
渐 mainland China, Singapore
Traditional
漸 Taiwan, Hong Kong

Pinyin jiàn most common reading

Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.

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